"By making a bold move," was the detective's reply. "The Germans were already bargaining for these negatives when I became convinced that the girl was only the tool of a man who had also been a photographer, and who had led a very adventurous life--an American living away in the country, near Colchester, under the name of Charles Sandford."
"Sandford!" I gasped, staring at him. "What is the girl like?"
"Here is her portrait," was the detective's reply.
Yes! It was the sweet face of my nightmare!
"What have you discovered regarding Sandford?" I asked presently, when I had related to the two men the story of the meeting at Salisbury and also my night's adventure.
"Though born in America and adopting an English name, his father was German, and we strongly suspect him of having, on several occasions, sold information to Germany. Yesterday, feeling quite certain of my ground, I went down into Essex with a search warrant and made an examination of the house. Upstairs I found a very complete photographic plant, and concealed beneath the floor-boards in the dining-room was a box containing these negatives, many of them being of your maps of the Clyde defences, which they were just about to dispose of. The man had got wind that we were keeping observation upon him, and had already fled. The gang consisted of an old hump-backed woman, who posed as his mother, a young woman, who he said was his married sister, but who was really the wife of his man-servant, and the girl Drew, who was his photographic assistant."
"Where's the girl? I suppose you don't intend to arrest her?"
"I think not. If you saw her perhaps you might induce her to tell you the truth. The plot to photograph those plans while you were insensible was certainly a cleverly contrived one, and it's equally certain that the two women you met in Salisbury only travelled with you in order to be convinced that you really carried the precious maps with you."
"Yes," I admitted, utterly amazed. "I was most cleverly trapped, but it is most fortunate that we were forewarned, and that our zealous friends across the water have been prevented from purchasing the detailed exposure of our most vulnerable points."
That afternoon, Gertie Drew, the neat-waisted girl with the fair face, walked timidly into my room, and together we sat for fully an hour, during which time she explained how the man Sandford had abstracted the portfolio from my car and substituted an almost exact replica, prior to sending Bennett back to Colchester, and how at the moment of my unconsciousness--as he was searching me for my key--she had entered the dining-room when I had opened my eyes, and staring at her had accused her of poisoning me. She knew she had been recognised, and that had caused her alarm in the "Carlton."
That Sandford had managed to replace the portfolio in the car and abstract the replica next day was explained, and that he had held the girl completely in his power was equally apparent. Therefore, I have since obtained for her a situation with a well-known firm of photographers in Regent Street, where she still remains. The hump-backed woman and her pseudo-daughter have never been seen since, but only a couple of months ago there was recovered from the Rhine at Coblenz the body of a man whose head was fearfully battered, and whom the police, by his clothes and papers upon him, identified as Charles Sandford, the man with whom I shall ever remember partaking of that peculiarly seductive glass of 1815 cognac.
CHAPTER XI
THE PERIL OF LONDON
Certain information obtained by Ray led us to adopt a novel method of trapping one of the Kaiser's secret agents.
About six months after my curious motoring adventure in Essex I sent to the _Berliner Tageblatt_, in Berlin, an advertisement, offering myself as English valet to any German gentleman coming to England, declaring that I had excellent references, and that I, Henry Dickson, had been in service with several English noblemen.
The replies forwarded to me caused us considerable excitement. Vera was with us at New Stone Buildings when the postman brought the bulky packet, and we at once proceeded to read them one by one.
"Holloa!" she cried, holding up one of the letters. "Here you are, Mr.
Jacox! The Baron Heinrich von Ehrenburg has replied!"
Eagerly we read the formal letter from the German aristocrat, dated from the Leipziger Strasse, Berlin, stating that, being about to take up his residence in London, he was in want of a good and reliable English servant. He would be at the Ritz Hotel in four days' time, and he made an appointment for me to call.
"Good!" cried Ray. "You must ask very little wages. Germans are a stingy lot. The Baron has been acting as a secret agent of the Kaiser in Paris, but had to fly on account of the recent Ullmo affair at Toulon. He's a very clever spy--about as clever, indeed, as Hartmann himself. Why he is coming to England is not quite clear. But we must find out."
For the next four days I waited in great anxiety, and when, at the appointed hour, I presented myself at the "Ritz" and was shown into the private salon, the middle-aged, fair-haired, rather elegant man eyed me up and down swiftly as I stood before him with great deference.
I was about to play a dangerous game.
After a number of questions, and an examination of my credentials, all of which, I may as well admit, had been prepared by Ray and Vera, he engaged me, and that same evening I entered upon my duties, greatly to the satisfaction of Vera and her lover.
Fortunately I was not known at the "Ritz," and was therefore able for the first week or so to do my valeting, brushing my master's clothes, polishing his boots, getting out his dress-suit, and other such duties, undisturbed, my eyes, however, always open to get a glimpse of any papers that might be left in the pockets or elsewhere.
Twice he drove to Pont Street and dined with Hartmann. The pair were in frequent consultation, it seemed, for one afternoon the chief of the German spies in England called, and was closeted closely with my master for fully two hours.
I stood outside the door, but unfortunately the doors of the "Ritz" are so constructed that nothing can be heard in the corridors. All I knew was that, on being called in to give a message over the telephone, I saw lying on the table between them several English six-inch ordnance maps.
No master could have been more generous than the Baron. He was tall, rather dandified, and seemed a great favourite with the ladies. Hartmann had introduced him to certain well-known members of the German colony in London, and he passed as the possessor of a big estate near Cochem, on the Moselle. He told me one day while I was brushing his coat that he preferred life in England to Germany. He, however, made no mention of his residence in France and how he had ingeniously induced a French naval officer to become a traitor.
From the "Ritz" we, later on, removed into expensive quarters at "Claridge's," and here my master received frequent visits from a shabby, thin-faced, shrivelled-up old foreigner, whom I took to be a Dutchman, his name being Mr. Van Nierop.
Whenever he called the Baron and he held close consultation, sometimes for hours. We travelled to Eastbourne, Bournemouth, Birmingham, Edinburgh, Glasgow, and other cities, yet ever and anon the shabby old Dutchman seemed to turn up at odd times and places, as though springing from nowhere.
When absent from London, the Baron frequently sent telegraphic messages in cipher to a registered address in London. Were these, I wondered, intended for Hartmann or for the mysterious Van Nierop?
The old fellow seemed to haunt us everywhere, dogging our footsteps continually, and appearing in all sorts of out-of-the-way places with his long, greasy overcoat, shabby hat, and shuffling gait, by which many mistook him for a Hebrew.
And the more closely I watched my aristocratic master, the more convinced I became that Van Nierop and he were acting in collusion. But of what was in progress I could obtain no inkling.
Frequently we moved quickly from one place to another, as though my master feared pursuit, then we went suddenly to Aix, Vichy, and Carlsbad, and remained away for some weeks. Early in the autumn we were back again at a suite of well-furnished chambers in Clarges Street, off Piccadilly.
"I expect, Dickson, that we shall be in London some months," the Baron had said to me on the second morning after we had installed ourselves with our luggage. The place belonged to a wealthy young peer of racing proclivities, and was replete with every comfort. All had been left just as it was, even to an open box of cigars. His lordship had gone on a trip round the world.
On the third day--a very wet and dismal one, I recollect--the old Dutchman arrived. The Baron was out, therefore he waited--waited in patience for six long hours for his return. When my master re-entered, the pair sat together for half an hour. Then suddenly the Baron shouted to me, "Dickson! Pack my suit-case and biggest kit-bag at once. Put in both dress-coat and dinner-jacket. And I shan't want you. You'll stay here and mind the place."
"Yes, sir," I replied, and began briskly to execute his orders.
When the shabby old fellow had gone, the Baron called me into the sitting-room and gave me two cipher telegrams, one written on the yellow form used for foreign messages. The first, which he had numbered "1" in blue pencil, was addressed "Zaza, Berlin," and the second was to "Tejada, Post Office, Manchester."
"These, Dickson, I shall leave with you, for I may want them despatched.
Send them the instant you receive word from me. I will tell you which to send. It's half-past eight. I leave Charing Cross at nine, but cannot give you any fixed address. Here's money to get along with. Wait here until my return."
I was sorely disappointed. I knew that he was a spy and was in England for some fixed purpose. But what it was I could not discover.
"And," he added, as though it were an afterthought, "if any one should by chance inquire about Mr. Van Nierop--whether you know him, or if he has been here--remember that you know nothing--nothing. You understand?"
"Very well, sir," was my response.
Five minutes later, refusing to allow me to accompany him to the station, he drove away into Piccadilly with his luggage upon a hansom, and thus was I left alone for an indefinite period.
That evening I went round to Bruton Street, where I saw Ray, and described what had occurred.
He sat staring into the fire in silence for some time.
"Well," he answered at last, "if what I surmise be true, Jack, the Baron ought to be back here in about a week. Continue to keep both eyes and ears open. There's a deep game being played, I am certain. He's with Hartmann very often. Recollect what I told you about the clever manner in which the Baron conducted the affair at Toulon. He would have been entirely successful hadn't a woman given Ullmo away. See me as little as you can. You never know who may be watching you during the Baron's absence."
On the next evening I went out for a stroll towards Piccadilly Circus and accidentally met a man I knew, a German named Karl Stieber, a man of about thirty, who was valet to a young gentleman who lived in the flat beneath us.
Together we descended to that noisy cafe beneath the Hotel de l'Europe in Leicester Square, where we met four other friends of Karl's, servants like himself.
As we sat together, he told me that his brother was head-waiter at a little French restaurant in Dean Street, Soho, called "La Belle Nicoise," a place where one could obtain real Provencal dishes. Then, I on my part, told him of my own position and my travels with the Baron.